


Start A Fire (Even If We’re Just Dancing In The Dark)

by luninosity



Category: British Actor RPF, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Aftercare, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Important Conversations, Kink Negotiation, Love, M/M, Oral Sex, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 01:19:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael likes certain kinks in bed, role-play and costumes and scenes; James has never really minded before. But this time, this night, he's tired, and he feels a bit ridiculous in the outfit, and he wants Michael to want him as <i>himself,</i> for once, just for tonight...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Start A Fire (Even If We’re Just Dancing In The Dark)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】Start A Fire (Even If We’re Just Dancing In The Dark)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3440576) by [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity), [Shame_i_translate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shame_i_translate/pseuds/Shame_i_translate)



> For [glisterwolf](http://glisterwolf.livejournal.com/)'s prompt of, one of them realizing that a certain kink just doesn’t do it for him anymore, and how they handle this together.
> 
> Title from Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark;" it seemed apt. Also, as per the line near the end, James McAvoy has talked in interviews about liking his grandmother's bacon sandwiches. :-)
> 
>  **Possible warning just in case** : …it’s not even exactly dubious consent, because James certainly wants to try, he’s just not very into the role-play kink at the moment and not really getting turned on; also a minute or two of Michael panickedly wondering whether he’s forced James into an uncomfortable scene, and then reassurance.

James stood in the bathroom, and stared at himself. More accurately, stared at the mirror version of himself. Somehow didn’t feel like him. Even less so than the normal uncanniness of a reflection.  
  
He touched his cheek, gently. Watched mirror-him echo the motion.  
  
Out in the bedroom, Michael’d likely be growing impatient, wondering what was taking longer than usual. Might even be getting up, coming to help.  
  
James paused, and waited, but there was no rustle of footsteps, no breath on the other side of the door. No one coming, then: still just him and the silent sink and shower fixtures and overhead gleam and that mute reflection, watching him with uncertain eyes.  
  
He said to himself, very softly, seeing his lips move, “I feel ridiculous,” because he did, and then put a hand over his mouth, because he was hearing the words out loud and they shook him hard, deep down inside. Cracks splintering through bone.  
  
The eyes in the mirror were larger and darker than the ones he thought of as his. When he touched the corner of the left one, the eyeliner smudged, leaving a dark streak across his fingertip. Michael’d probably approve; might tell him he looked more imperfect, gorgeously flawed, like a boy who _would_ be picked up off a street corner, brought up to Michael’s hotel room, and fucked all night long.  
  
Other nights they did other roles. Strangers in the bar. Spy and captive. They’d used the X-Men suits once, after filming, Michael laughing when they’d snuck the blue-and-yellow tangle back into the wardrobe trailer. James had even worn the corset more than once, the one that Michael’d bought early on, while Michael’s hands closed around his impossibly small waist, pressing stays into his skin, sliding off his garter-belt.  
  
He’d had bruises in delicate lines along his torso, every time. Michael seemed to enjoy that, if the response were any indication.  
  
He looked at himself again. Leather pants, tight mesh shirt, nipple clamps that mocked piercings visible underneath. Messy hair, and that makeup, dark kohl and a hint of glitter that made him look much younger and almost unreal, some fantastical creature gazing back at him from the mirror.  
  
The trouble was that he didn’t feel fantastical. The trouble was that he felt…  
  
…tired.  
  
Two years, it’d been. Two years of them filming together, doing press together, falling into each other’s hotel beds at the ends of the days. Coffee in the morning and traded kisses in the shower.  
  
It’d been easy, really. Like recognizing a connection that was always there, only waiting for them to wake up and see. Some parts weren’t as easy—film schedules, publicity tours, promotions, all kept them busy, but they’d made it work. They’d go on making it work, phone calls and video chats and middle-of-the-day thinking-of-you texts. They were happy; he knew they were.  
  
And sometimes, like now, Michael showed up in the bar after James had finished all his interviews for his current upcoming film, and leaned down and murmured a room number in his ear, with intent.  
  
He ran a finger around the ragged shirt collar, pensively.  
  
It all _had_ been fun. Like Michael, he was an actor: different roles, imagination, flirtation, that was practically built into each heartbeat. If Michael asked for that nearly every time, if that was what got Michael excited in bed, if Michael wanted to grin at him speculatively and suggest pirate scenarios, well, James would laugh right back and come up with _some_ way to tease the terror of the Cuban-beach stand-in sets into sparing his captive’s life. There’d been a lot of laughter, early on.  
  
Standing there in the expensive hotel-suite bathroom, with the overhead lights burning down, his thirty-fifth birthday on the horizon, lines around his eyes because he’d had a headache after the interview-laden day and not enough food, he just couldn’t find the joy anymore.  
  
He shut his eyes, so he’d not have to look at the street-hooker get-up for a second or two.  
  
Michael wanted this, though. Wanted him like this. Wanted the fantasy.  
  
“ _Oh_ ,” James said, out loud, and put the hand over his mouth again, and felt his fingers shaking.  
  
Michael might’ve heard the muffled sound, or finally was growing impatient. “James?”  
  
“Coming!” He _was_ an actor. A good one. And he loved Michael, he genuinely did. He’d never felt the same with anyone else: the way Michael’s smiles always made him want to grin, the way his heart skipped a beat when Michael put a hand on his or an arm around his shoulder, the way Michael laughed delightedly at all of James’s terrible jokes and teased him about his science-fiction proclivities and then brought him a Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blaster, meticulously researched and perfected with all of Michael’s old bartending skills.  
  
They _said_ the I-love-yous. He knew he meant the words.  
  
He put a hand on the bathroom doorknob, and thought: this is silly, you love him, so he wants some role-play kink in bed, you’ve done it practically every time you’ve had sex with him since the first, what’s different now, what’s wrong with you, get yourself out there and smile so he’ll smile too…  
  
He walked out into the room, bare feet making no sound on the plush carpet. Michael, sitting shirtless on the bed, got up, eyes brightening as if he’d been a bit worried. “Took you a while. Everything all right?”  
  
“I…” He hesitated, awkward; but those pale eyes were sweeping up and down his form appreciatively, lingering on the tightness of the leather, the shirt that clung to every curve and line. He gave up, under that scrutiny. “Fine. Just kind of cold.”  
  
“Oh. Here—” Over to the thermostat, flicking of controls; then bouncing back to stand in front of him, enthusiastic and apologetic. “Better?”  
  
“I—yes. Sorry.”  
  
“No, it’s fine, just tell me, please. I don’t want you to be cold. I love you.” Michael reached out and ran his thumb over James’s cheekbone, the same spot his own fingers’d touched earlier. Out of nowhere, James found himself wanting to cry.  
  
“Hey,” Michael said, and tugged him closer for a kiss. “ _Are_ you all right? I didn’t mean to surprise you—well, no, I did, sort of. I missed you. And this. But if you’re tired—”  
  
“No, it’s fine. I missed you, too.” He had. He leaned into that lean taller warmth for a second, resting against Michael’s firm chest. Heard those words, intertwined, brushing along his skin and the waiting bed and the luxurious furnishings of the room. I missed you. And this. As if they were the same.  
  
“If you’re sure.” Michael kissed him again, gently but decidedly. “So, then…I think I’ve smudged your eyeliner, sorry…you look beautiful, by the way. Sort of…young and cynical and decadent…can you be decadent, for me? If I…make it worth your while?”  
  
Ah. In-role already; well, he did know the script for this one. Knew precisely what Michael’d want him to do.  
  
He tipped his head to one side, gazing up through shyly teasing eyelashes. “You picked me up, sir. Out of everyone you could’ve had, you brought me up here…you must’ve seen…something you liked.” He flicked one of the nipple clamps, through his shirt; watched Michael’s gaze go all hot and hungry. “What would you like, from me? Or should I say…what would you like first? It is your night, after all.” He lifted the same hand, touched his own lips, then caught Michael’s hand and ran his tongue along that long index finger, up and down, leaving a wet stripe over Irish-fair skin. “I’ve been told I have excellent…oral delivery.”  
  
“You…” Michael’s voice shook slightly, but recovered, rough and raw. “Yes. That. On your knees, then.”  
  
The hand in his hair pushed him down; he knelt, and undid Michael’s belt without hands, and opened those slacks with lips and tongue and teeth alone. Michael, impatient, shoved all the fabric down, naked now; his cock was full and thick and long, and like every time James wanted to pause for a moment and simply admire, to lick and stroke and taste and work his way up to the length of it. Not in the cards for tonight, though. Not when Michael held his head in place and shoved forward roughly, making him choke and gag and fight for air around the obstruction.  
  
Michael did pull back, hand in his hair loosening. “James—”  
  
James shook his head and slid down again, not looking up. He could feel Michael stiffening even further in his mouth, pushing deeper into his throat; he employed all the techniques he could think of, sucking, stroking, messy and wet because Michael wanted him that way. And he took the thrusts forward as Michael groaned, and tasted the bittersweet drops when they leaked across his tongue, and he focused on Michael, on making Michael happy, as much as he could.  
  
He didn’t look up. Partly in-character, and partly because something in his chest felt very old and broken, like ancient bruises, left by kicks to the heart. His nipples ached bleakly, and the leather pants stuck to his skin, and he didn’t want to be some boy Michael’d picked up off a street corner for money; he wanted to be himself, only himself, and to have Michael kiss him.  
  
It was his fault, he knew. Had to be. They’d had fun with the role-play on so many previous nights; tonight, this night, he couldn’t get into the scene, and that _was_ his fault, he was an actor and he should be able to play any role, and he was very aware that he was only half-hard, and that only because the taste and sight and sounds of Michael were so intoxicating.  
  
Nothing else had changed. Only him. _He_ was the wrong part of the night, then.  
  
Fortunately, a good rent-boy wouldn’t care too much about eye contact or emotional intimacy. James kept his eyes lowered, and lavished all his attention on Michael, who was making thoroughly pleasured babbling sounds.  
  
“Beautiful,” Michael whispered, “so beautiful, so good at this, you’re so fucking good—” and then gasped, and James felt a bit proud of himself. He might not be able to command his own body to get turned on, but he’d not lost his skill at teasing Michael’s.  
  
“So perfect,” Michael told him this time, hand cupping the back of his head, “so lovely, god, could take you home and keep you there, let you be my whore, only mine, would you like that,” and James flinched but managed to slide his mouth off that cock with a slick pop and breathe, “yes, sir,” and Michael tugged at his arm. “Up. Stand up; I want to see you.”  
  
He did. He didn’t bother to wipe his mouth; he knew what those heather-mist eyes would be seeking. Flushed cheeks, red lips, shining with wetness from his mouth and from Michael’s cock, dripping and sticky and leaving an obscene trail down his chin. He let his gaze rest on the arch of Michael’s hip, the jut of bone, the elegant definition of that slim waist. Familiar. Safe. Safer than anyplace else.  
  
“There’s money,” Michael told him, “on the dresser…there could be more. If you’re good. Will you be good for me, James?”  
  
“Yes,” he said, and didn’t quite recognize his own voice. “I mean…I…yes, I will. Mr Fassbender.”  
  
“You can call me Michael.” One hand skimmed his cheek, lifted his chin; James didn’t have enough time to stabilize his expression, and their eyes met.  
  
The world stopped turning, except for Michael’s shocked sudden tenseness.  
  
James bit his lip. Tasted blood, after.  
  
“James…” Michael started to reach for him with the other hand, then stopped, fingers curling in on themselves halfway. “James, I…are you…” That gaze dropped to the tell-tale lack of bulge in his trousers, lingered, then snapped upward, horrified. “James, I didn’t…I haven’t…oh, god, are you all right?”  
  
He opened his mouth. Then shook his head, as the tears pushed themselves insistently forward.  
  
“Oh god,” Michael said again, and wrapped both arms around him and eased them both to the floor, Michael propped against the foot of the bed and James in his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. What did I—did I say something wrong? Did I hurt you?”  
  
“No…you were fine…it’s me, I just…”  
  
“James, please.” That hand again, cradling his head against an offered shoulder. It was nearly large enough to cup his whole skull, he thought distantly, and nearly laughed, but the soundless tears interfered.  
  
“I love you.” Michael sounded anxious now. Resolute, but with underlying fear. “I love you, James, and we can solve this, whatever this is, it’ll be all right, but I need you to talk to me, okay? I need to know what I did wrong. So it doesn’t happen again.”  
  
“—love you,” James whispered back, because someone had to, because none of this was Michael’s fault. “It wasn’t you. All me. I just couldn’t—I can’t—I looked at myself in there with the shirt and the eyeliner and I couldn’t, I couldn’t want this, it’s not me, the costumes, the roles, it’s not—I’m sorry.” He had to stop. His eyes burned.  
  
Michael’s expression, in that moment, was a tragedy. Snapping harpstrings. Broken melodies.  
  
“James, I—I never knew you felt—I thought you were enjoying all this, that this was—was fun for you, for you and me, why wouldn’t you say—no, it’s not your fault, I’m sorry, James, I should’ve seen that you weren’t…enjoying yourself…” With a stumble over the phrase: Michael having a difficult time getting those particular words to emerge. “I never meant to hurt you. Please believe that. Are you all right?”  
  
He could say yes, or he could say no, or he could say that he didn’t know, which might be closest to the truth. James tipped his head up; found aching grey-green eyes with his. He felt exhausted and heart-sore and ludicrously dressed, but also oddly lighter: whatever happened next, it wouldn’t be pretense.  
  
He said, to the eyes, “I’m all right. And I _was_ enjoying myself. Before. You didn’t—force me into anything.” Michael appeared utterly unconvinced; James licked his lips, went on. “I’ve been—all of it’s been good, I was—it was fun. Except tonight…”  
  
“Except tonight.”  
  
“Except tonight I…I just couldn’t. Get into it. Being someone else. I don’t want to be the stranger you pick up at a bar or the boy you find on a street corner. I want to be me. I want you to see me when you kiss me, when you say you love me—I’m sorry, I know you love this, the role-play, the outfits, the scenes and—I just. I don’t know why tonight.” He stared at his hands. There was a dark glittery streak of kohl across the back of one. He couldn’t remember how it’d gotten there. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I love you.”  
  
“Oh, James…” Michael reached for that hand, too. Took it, studying the desolate smear of make-up over hidden freckles. “Have I…have I done that, to you? Made you think I didn’t want you?”  
  
“It’s fine, it’s not your fault, you didn’t—”  
  
“Have I done that to you?”  
  
“I don’t know,” James said, and then, because Michael deserved the truth, “yes. You—you don’t. Want me. You want this—” A glance at himself, up and down, was enough; Michael followed the movement, looking stricken. “James—”  
  
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t change.” He put a hand up under the clinging mesh shirt, because the nipple clamps were naggingly dully painful, and unsnapped them, letting them fall into his palm, shutting his eyes against the sight and the sharper return of sensation. “I did.”  
  
There was a silence, heavy and muffled, then.  
  
And then a large warm hand reached for his, taking the decorations out of his palm, scattering them away across the carpet and coming back to hold his fingers, gingerly.  
  
James looked up. Michael’s eyes were wet. And the hand holding his was extremely gentle, as if afraid to ask for anything at all, as if afraid any offer of comfort might be refused.  
  
He put his head back on Michael’s shoulder. Michael started to speak, stopped, swallowed, tried again. “I love you. I—I fell in love with you because you’re you, James, because you’re the best person I know, the way you look at the world, the way you understand people, the way you give so much, always, to everyone—you did that, you know, bridge-jump sky-dive thing for charity and I was terrified for you and I was so proud to be with you and I was just in awe of you, because you’d do that, if someone needed you to, and you—you’ve been doing that for me, haven’t you? Giving everything? How long has it been since I’ve told you that I want you? As you?”  
  
“Oh…I…not that long, really, I…”  
  
“I know you know.”  
  
“Over a year.” He felt himself flinch at the admission, muscles preparing to take a dismissal and get up and walk away, out of Michael’s hotel room and life and heart, if that last one even applied. “A year and two months, just about. The day we finished that interview round, and we were so tired, and we fell into bed and I thought you couldn’t possibly be up for anything but then you kissed me, and you said my name, and you, um, got us off with your hand, before we both fell asleep…”  
  
“That long…” Michael’s voice shook: with comprehension, with sorrow, with regret? He couldn’t tell. Couldn’t bring himself, through the weariness, to ask. Shut his eyes again and tried to remember how to inhale amid the grey blank universe.  
  
“Hey—” Michael shook him, still careful but abrupt, both voice and action suddenly colored by concern. “James. _James_. I _did_ hurt you, I—oh, Christ. Are you—you’re not going to pass out, you’re not, James, you’re _not_. Stay awake, look at me, stay with me. What do you need? Water? Can I get you water?”  
  
“I’m only tired.”  
  
“Christ,” Michael said again, and lifted him gently to his feet, walked him to the bed, folded him into pillows. Sprinted to the bathroom, filled a glass, came back and held it to his lips. “Drink. Please. You’re completely white.”  
  
He took the sip, because it was easier than arguing. Strangely, that did seem to help. Or maybe it was the way Michael was looking at him, terrified and desperately caring. “It’s just I didn’t eat dinner…”  
  
“You didn’t eat?”  
  
“You showed up, and I…I did miss you.” He managed a shrug. Also holding the glass on his own, this time. “I’m all right.”  
  
“I love you,” Michael said again. “I want you, I do, I always want you—I want to order everything on the room-service menu for you, would you eat it, if I did?” If _I_ did, was the unspoken question: would you accept the gesture, if it came from me?  
  
James set the water on the bedside table, hearing the precise clink of glass against helpful polished wood. Held out his hand; Michael took it, after a second, with something like astonishment in the meeting. “I’d try. Not everything. Pick something. You know what I like.”  
  
Michael breathed in, once. “I…don’t think I’m actually very good at that. Knowing what you—James, I’m sorry.”  
  
“That’s because I never tell you,” James said, logically, and Michael made a hopeless sound and folded up on the bed, forehead pressed to their joined hands, over his lap. “Oh, god, James. You—you know you can tell me, I want you to tell me, please tell me. We do everything I ask for. Always. But you—please ask me for what you want. Please tell me you know you can. You _can_.”  
  
“What if what I want sort of…means we’re not doing what you want?” He put a hand on Michael’s head, ran fingers through curling hair, long enough now to make silky loops against his skin. “If I want to…just be us. I know you like the role-play. The fantasy.”  
  
“Oh—” Michael sat up, dislodging the hand; then grabbed it and kissed it, as if to make up for the displacement. “I do, yes. But that—I like it because it’s you. Because in all those fantasies, it’s you. In every scenario, every…alternate universe, sort of. Always you. That’s half—no, most of—the fun.”  
  
“Oh,” James said, an unintentional echo because he was afraid he might cry again.  
  
“But I need to be better about wanting you here. In this universe. Where we’re just us. James and Michael, and Michael is absolutely in love with James, just the way he is, because he’s perfect.” Michael kissed his fingers again, more slowly; James started to say “I am not,” and only got to the first syllable before Michael’s mouth closed over that index finger and tugged him into surrounding wet heat.  
  
“Oh—”  
  
“Hmm?” Mint-grey eyes glanced up, somehow both certain and tentative: Michael meant the gesture, and wasn’t sure of the response. His mouth slid back up off James’s finger, wistful lips resting over tingling skin. “Can we…would you want…if I can show you how much I want you…can I convince you to not leave me?”  
  
 _“What?”_  
  
Michael visibly flinched, all at once off-balance, resolve cracking like too-thin ice. “I know you aren’t happy, I know I’ve not been very good to you, but I’ll try, I swear I’ll try, anything you say you want, if you’d give me another chance—”  
  
“I—what—when did I ever say—I’m not leaving you!”  
  
“You’re not?”  
  
“No!”  
  
“You…”  
  
“I love you!” Because Michael was sitting there on the bed staring at him wide-eyed, James added, “you didn’t seriously think I’d leave you, did you, you promised me room service and you apologized to me and you’ve been kissing my fingers and looking at me like you think I’m amazing—yes, like that, you can go on doing that—and you don’t think I’d give you up now, honestly, come here.”  
  
“I love you,” Michael said, between pressing kisses to his lips, his cheeks, the line of his jaw, “so fucking much. You _are_ amazing. You know that, you know I think that, or no you don’t but I’ll keep telling you until you do, all right?”  
  
“I could live with that.” He put the hand back into Michael’s hair, as Michael’s teeth nibbled at his neck, nipping lightly over the pulse-point. He shivered; Michael paused to drop a kiss over the spot, tender and quick. “Not hurting you?”  
  
“No, I like it…” He did. He liked Michael kissing him everywhere, liked the feeling of it, being cherished and desired and adored. He tipped his head back for easier access; Michael groaned softly and bit down over his collarbone, teeth and pressure scraping a bruise into thin skin. James heard himself gasp; felt his hips jerk in response.  
  
Michael smiled against the sensitive new mark; sat up to look him in the eyes, a question.  
  
“Yes,” James informed him, “yes, I want you, yes, can you get me out of this outfit now,” and Michael laughed and helped ease the shirt up over his head, the tight leather pants down over his legs; they tangled and stuck around his ankles, and Michael glanced up a little ruefully and James shook his head and began laughing as well, helplessly, giddily, and Michael yanked all the leather away and tossed it across the room, where it barely landed on the back of a chair and cheerfully defied gravity.  
  
“I love you,” James said, and Michael said, “I love you, James McAvoy,” and then leaned down and in one fluid motion took all of James’s cock into his mouth.  
  
James made a sound that might’ve been Michael’s name or some sort of blasphemous affirmation or simply a moan; he could _feel_ Michael’s grin at that, and then Michael went about making love to him in earnest, discovering every inch of him, exploratory licks at his slit and tongue-strokes along his length and long fingers sneaking up to fondle the weight of his balls, and it was a discovery, both of them here and now as _them_ , and it was beautiful.  
  
He nearly screamed when Michael swallowed him all the way down, feeling himself all the way back in Michael’s throat, so deep and so good everywhere; Michael paused for a breath and a rather self-satisfied little hum against heated skin, and James gasped and swore out loud and demanded that Michael stop teasing _right the fuck now_ , and Michael looked up and met his eyes, smile bright with newly admitted happiness.  
  
“James,” that Celtic-landscape voice murmured, lingering over his name as if ensuring he heard every letter, “I want you, I love you, I want to taste you when you come for me,” and James felt the words lighting fires of pure want under every inch of his skin, and all he could manage was a tiny wordless pleading sound and a nod.  
  
Michael smirked, kissed the tip of his cock, right where needy little drops of liquid were beading up and quivering on the edge; when James whimpered, he took a breath and then slid all the way back down, one uninterrupted motion, and flicked his tongue along the underside of the head, and _sucked_.  
  
James’s vision whited out.  
  
Michael, evidently just to make sure, stroked his tongue over the entire length, pausing to apply pressure just below the pulsing slit, and sucked at him again.  
  
James might’ve screamed. He couldn’t tell. The orgasm was already there, and it hit like a lightning-storm, blinding and searing and crackling through his veins and all his senses.  
  
He lay there panting and trying to breathe, blinking sparkles out of his eyes, feeling dazed and limp and electric all over. Michael had somehow moved up the bed without him noticing, and was gazing at him as if seeing a marvel.  
  
“Michael…you…you…that…oh _god_.”  
  
“Good, then.” Michael hesitated, though still smiling; James, slowly regaining awareness, became extremely aware of a very specific and insistent presence, namely Michael’s erection shoving its way into his hip. He got his hand to move.  
  
“James…you… _oh_ …you don’t have to…this was about you…what you want…”  
  
“I want you.”  
  
“But—oh fuck yes your hand yes please that—”  
  
“That?” He watched the slide of Michael’s cock between his fingers, so long and full and heavy with want. So wet, too; Michael always had gotten wet for him easily, in every scenario, at his touch, dripping with it, fluid spilling over from the tip and down the length and onto his hand. “I think you like that. More?”  
  
“Yes—if you—yes—” Michael’s breath was coming in small broken pants; James looked up, met his eyes, lifted the hand, licked a broad stripe along his own palm, tasting Michael on his skin. Then wrapped the hand back around Michael’s shaft, stroked, tightened the grip, made sure to add the small twist of the wrist, the slide up over the head that he knew would work; Michael choked out his name, and James looked him right in the eyes and said wordlessly _I love you_ , and Michael gasped and came, cock jerking in his grip, climax spurting out over his hand between their bodies, hot and sticky with release.  
  
Michael sprawled there in the aftermath looking at him dazedly; James laughed. “Love you?”  
  
“I…James. Yes. Come here?”  
  
They were still sticky, but neither of them cared. They curled up together in the center of the bed, eyeliner smudges on skin and pillowcases, sweat and desire in the air, and Michael draped a leg over his hips and kissed his forehead. “I love you.”  
  
“I know you do.”  
  
“Do you?” Michael’s hand brushed hair out of his eyes, fond and sincere. “You mean that?”  
  
“Yes, I do. I want this. And you. We’re good. Or we will be. This was good.”  
  
“This was good…” Michael’s expression changed, lightened, mists lifting off the lake at dawn. “We’ll do this more. All the time, if you want. I won’t ask you for any—any of that. The other things.”  
  
“Well,” James said, after a comfortable few seconds of Michael’s hand playing with his hair, “you can ask. Y’know. Sometimes. It _was_ fun.”  
  
“It wasn’t, for you—”  
  
“It was. Until it started being all the time. But once in a while, or maybe even half of the whiles, I know you do like the role-play, and I don’t mind, if I know you also want, y’know, me. So…”  
  
“So…you would…you would still sometimes…don’t say yes just to make me happy, James.” Michael kissed him again, worn-out and open and honest. “Please.”  
  
“I’m not,” James said, kissing him back, “I mean it. Maybe not the leather pants and eyeliner—”  
  
“I’m so sorry. Again. Can I order you that room service now? I can feed you…bacon sandwiches?...in bed. If you’d want that.”  
  
“—yes you can, and yes I would, and we don’t have to give up _all_ your fantasy scenarios. I mean, I kind of liked the pirate one.”


End file.
